AN EPISODE WITH SENATOR RAND PAUL

Almost as soon as I arrived from the hospital to the Rehab center last April, a visitor surprised me, carrying a bouquet of yellow tulips and a large orchid-colored envelope. I recognized him as Rand Paul, Senator from Kentucky. Not long before my accident, I had seen and heard Rand Paul speak on television and I was most favorably impressed by what he said. Of all the names floating around of those who might run for president, I decided Paul was the best of the lot. And now he was visiting me in Idaho! The orchid-colored envelope was addressed to me and stamped, but had not been posted. He carried it. He told me about the tulips. Two years ago he had planted 100 tulips in his yard and left them in the ground all year long. This year he had a thousand! He wished I could see his yard with them in bloom, of course. 

All this time, I knew he was in Idaho unofficially campaigning for the presidency. Why choose to visit me? Perhaps he knew about my blogs and maybe I could get him a vote or two from readers. He was surely visiting other people in my state. Perhaps he had a plane at our airport, loaded with bouquets of yellow tulips.

When my friend Amy came that afternoon, she saw the flowers but when I wanted to show her the orchid-colored envelope, it was nowhere to be found. I described it to her: he had written all over the front and back of the envelope. About himself, his family, his state. Campaigning! What a gem this piece of paper would be when he was in the White House! But where was it?

Finally those drugs I'd been dosed with wore off and I realized--when he returned the next day--the tulip planter was none other than the head of therapy at the Rehab, not Senator Paul at all! And no orchid-colored envelope existed. But orchid is one of my favorite colors and I love yellow tulips.